


Chain Reaction

by Margaery



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4571289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margaery/pseuds/Margaery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell ya about it, mate.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chain Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> Although these characters are inspired by the public personas of living people and inspiration is taken from current events, nothing is implied about the actual Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis. This is fiction.

“Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell ya about it, mate.” 

As soon as it’s left his mouth, Nick is suddenly hyper-aware of all the thousands of eyes on him. The ballboy stares, then obviously decides he didn’t hear what he thought he heard; nobody else is close enough – certainly not Stan, on the other side of the court – except for the tiny invisible microphones that have picked up every word.

Nick imagines Twitter exploding, and turns around with the balls. Nothing he can do about it now. It’s out. 

~

_eighteen months earlier_

“How did practice go?” Nick asks, sprawled on the hotel sofa with a leg thrown up over the back. It’s not ideal for his posture (or the sofa), but fuck that, whatever, it’s comfortable. He’s making his Slam debut, he should really be indulged in whatever is most comfortable, and fuck the furniture. Performing well is the only goal.

Thanasi shrugs, ruffling a hand through his hair. “Good. She’s pretty funny.”

“Forget _funny_ ,” Nick says, waving his hand expansively, “is she any good?”

Thanasi eyes his leg, and apparently decides shoving it off the top of the sofa is more trouble than it’s worth. He just sits down instead. Nick could kick the back of his head if he wanted, but he’s not exactly in an ideal wrestling situation – too many exposed places – so he refrains. “Yeah, she’s good. How’s yours?”

Nick privately thinks he’s got the short straw in mixed doubles partner competition. There just aren’t any hot young Australians, and he hasn’t been on the actual tour where he could be in combined events and meet girls. “Fuck you for getting a hot one,” he says, comfortably poking Thanasi in the ribs. Thanasi tries to squirm away, but Nick is good at poking. He has an older brother. 

“Look, she’s not, y’know,” Thanasi says, blushing. He’s such a kid.

“She’s almost eighteen, man, legs up to here. I guarantee she’s up for it.”

Thanasi frowns. 

The things Nick has to do to get his best friend laid. He’s got a sneaking suspicion that Thanasi’s actually never fucked a girl, which would be why he always looks shy and faintly constipated when he sees one. Dude’s gonna be eighteen in two months – this has got to be fixed. “Look, I’ll come hang out at your next practice and tell you if she’s looking at you, hey?”

Thanasi has a deeply skeptical look on his face, which is slanderous, because Nick is totally really good at this. He’s been with girls before. Well, not that many girls, but still. Girls. They are hot and fun and laugh a lot, and he’s getting pretty good at sex. Not as good as at tennis, he’ll admit privately although never publicly, but hey, he’s been playing tennis longer. He’ll get to be really first-rate Grand Slam material in no time. 

“I’m okay,” Thanasi says, with a kinda odd look on his face. Nick knows he didn’t say any of that out loud, though, because he’d know if he said shit out loud. “I think she’s interested in somebody else already.”

Uh-oh. What if it’s him? Nick is pretty hot stuff. He doesn’t know Donna very well – she’s more Thanasi’s friend – but maybe she’s been wanting to jump his bones from afar. He wills his inconvenient boner down and hopes Thanasi didn’t see it. No, he’s not going to make a play for her, because _Thanasi’s_ going to make a play for her, and hopefully not go down in flames. That would suck.

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“No,” Thanasi says, drumming his fingers on the nearest surface, which happens to be Nick’s leg. “But…”

“So, she’s seventeen and horny, you’re seventeen and horny, it’s a perfect fit,” Nick says, and tries to make an upside-down grab for the pizza box on the table. Somehow he misjudges the distance and almost lands on his head on the floor. 

“You’re a human pretzel,” Thanasi observes, solemnly. He is upside-down. Or maybe Nick is.

Nick flips him the bird. “Fuck off.”

~

“Mate,” Nick says, as Thanasi upends his water bottle, “she’s totally hot for you.”

Thanasi nearly chokes. When he regains his breath, he glares. “Shut up. She’ll hear you.”

That would help matters. Cut out all the drama. Nick doesn’t have much patience with drama. But unfortunately, “She’s already almost inside, she won’t hear me.”

Thanasi doesn’t stop glaring. “She’s my doubles partner, Nick, I’m not trying to date her.”

“Who said anything about dating her?” Nick says, winking. It feels weird on his face, though, and he regrets it almost instantly. Moving on, hoping Thanasi didn’t notice that. “C’mon, mate, she was totally checking you out.”

“I dunno,” Thanasi says, shoving Nick’s shoulder until he scoots over on the practice bench. “I kinda want to focus on the tournament, you know? If I beat Sijsling, I’ll face Nadal on Rod Laver.”

“Or Bernie,” Nick says, which makes them both laugh, shoulder to shoulder in the blistering summer sunshine.

(Neither one of them thinks much of Bernie. Just between themselves.)

“C’mon, though, dude,” Nick says, when Thanasi’s half-eaten his banana. “Just tell her she looks hot or something. See if she’s interested.”

Thanasi twirls his racquet in his hand and takes another bite of banana. He’s got that wrinkle between his eyebrows again.

Nick sighs and drops his own racquet bag on the ground. “Like this,” he says, and leans in towards Thanasi, which makes Thanasi’s eyes go a little wide. “You lean in, just a little, and you say, Oh, Donna, you look really hot today. Going somewhere special?”

Thanasi looks constipated. Nick sighs. “Then she laughs and says, nowhere special, just playing tennis and maybe going shopping later.” He flips his hair, just like a glamorous blonde might. “Then you lean in a little more” – he suits action to word, and slides a thumb up the side of Thanasi’s cheek – “and say, how about you ditch the shopping?” His voice went creditably raspy on that. Nick’s proud.

Thanasi swallows his bite of banana, almost as though he’d forgotten it was in his mouth. “Isn’t that a little … blunt?” he says.

“Oh, honey,” Nick says, still leaned in close, “we can take it as slow as you want.” He trails the finger on Thanasi’s cheek down and brushes it across Thanasi’s lips, dragging it slowly.

Thanasi had looked half-frozen, but that snaps him out of it. “Leave off, you fucker,” he says, shoving at Nick’s chest. “I can do my own dating, I don’t need advice from a … a …”

“Stud?” Nick offers, cheerily, taking a swig of his own water-bottle.

“Eighteen-year-old Don Juan,” Thanasi says, with dignity, and stalks off to the baseline. 

His exit is rather ruined, however, by the fact that he forgets his racquet and has to come back. Nick laughs at him, and Thanasi bonks him over the head with it.

~

_present day_

Nick makes a beeline for his locker as soon as he gets back into the locker room, rummaging through his mess of stuff (his mother is always telling him to clean it) until he finds his phone, which had annoyingly fallen into a shoe. _Please pick up_ , he thinks, listening to it ring, _please pick up_.

He gets Thanasi’s voicemail, and after the beep he can’t think of anything to say. 

He hangs up, wordless, and tries again, not knowing what else to do.

Just as he gets voicemail a second time, Wawrinka comes around the corner, looking murderous. Guess someone’s told him, then. Nick swallows.

~

_eighteen months earlier_

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Nick offers, after deciding that sixteen sidelong glances (not that he’s been counting) is enough sensitivity for one afternoon. 

Thanasi flushes, and stares harder at the screen, as if his goalie is the important thing in the world. Which, to be fair, Nick’s scored on his goalie five times already – but that’s not the point, he’s getting sidetracked.

He’d kinda like to ignore the whole thing, except Thanasi looks like a claycourt after a downpour and it’s bringing Nick down. Besides, he feels a tiny bit responsible, since he coaxed this along in the first place. Does he want to spend an hour talking about the perfidiousness of women, instead of drinking a beer his trainer doesn’t know he stole and playing FIFA with his best mate? Naw, not exactly. But he’s a good guy. 

Nick sighs. “Uh, you know, it doesn’t always go that great the first time.” 

His first time had been with this terrifyingly tall girl who’d let him go down on her, and that was amazing and weird all at once, but then he’d got overexcited and come all over himself without even getting to fuck her, and it was literally one of the most humiliating moments of his life. Even though she’d been super nice about it and they’d actually fucked later, once his dick had got over feeling embarrassed. 

Thanasi still isn’t looking at him, but his neck is bright red. A good sign – Nick thinks. “It does get better, though. Just, you know, go back tomorrow. With flowers. Girls love shit like that.”

“It’s not,” Thanasi says, still beet-red, then stops.

Nick waits. He’s good at waiting. Well, not good at waiting, actually. But rushing Thanasi isn’t going to help. He moves closer instead and is about to put a hand on Thanasi’s shoulder before he remembers that Thanasi may be, like, not wanting to be touched right now. Who knows what happened to him, the first time in a girl’s bed. 

Thanasi kinda looks at him out of the corner of his eye. He’s chewing his lip.

Nick waits, like, another whole fifteen seconds, and then blurts, “Did she want to tie you up or something?”

“What?” Thanasi says, putting his controller down and turning on the sofa. “Tie me up?” 

“Just…” Nick waves his hand. “You know. You looked… weird. I didn’t mean getting tied up was bad. Or. Like. You know. If it happened, it’s totally cool, mate, she’s hot.”

“I didn’t get _tied up_ ,” Thanasi says, looking like he thinks Nick is being totally weird, which is not fair. Nick is just, like, at a disadvantage here, because talking about hot babes is one thing, he does it with Christos all the time, but talking about sex is kinda weirdly different. 

Thanasi seems to make a decision, and leans back against the sofa. “It’s not like that. It was fine, it was all fine, she’s great. It’s just,” he says, his voice kinda airy, “she likes somebody else.” 

“She likes somebody else?” Nick says, blankly. Then, indignantly, “And she told you this while she was in bed with you?”

“If you remember,” Thanasi says, raising his eyebrows, “I told you in the beginning she liked somebody else. And _you_ said to go after her anyway. But no, she didn’t tell me in bed, she told me, uh, afterwards. Like, to let me down gently, I guess.”

Nick scowls. “Fucking gently.”

Thanasi nudges him in the ribs. “It’s fine. We had a good time. Whatever.”

The topic appears to be closed. Nick picks up his beer again, pretty happy about the fact that Thanasi appears to have snapped out of whatever funk he was in. 

After a minute, in which Nick scores, because he’s just that good, Thanasi says, “Wait. Did you think it was my _first time_?” 

“Uh,” Nick says.

~

The thing is, though, whatever Christos says sometimes, Nick isn’t stupid. He’s pretty astute, really – and isn’t that a nice word, astute – and he can pick up on things. 

And what he’s picking up on right now is that something is up in the land of Kokkinakis.

Not physically up; the guy’s like, asexual or something, or maybe he just really likes his own hand. Nick, ever since the Australian Open made him a bit of a household name, has been finding his own pulling game radically elevated. The earring and the hair help. He’s fucking cool, man. And he’s fucking a _lot_ , man. He’s getting, like, an education in how different tits can look. It’s a lot of fun.

But Thanasi just looks sad and sulky. And Thanasi is not meant to be sad and sulky, he’s the kind of guy who laughs uproariously and always has a twinkle in his eye, even when you’re drunk and falling all over him and he sighs and says, “Do I have to _carry you_ ,” but in a patient only mock-annoyed voice that means he really doesn’t mind.

Nick has thought it over at length, in between bossing his way on the tour and learning how to get girls off, and by the time Wimbledon is over he thinks he’s narrowed down the timeframe, at least. Thanasi got pissy about the time of the Australian Open. And that means…

“You’re not over Donna,” Nick announces, letting the door crash open. He wrinkles his nose. “It’s like, 8am, why aren’t you up yet.”

“Go away,” Thanasi says, muffled in the pillows, not even reaching for the sheets he’s kicked off. He’s got freckles on his butt, which Nick has never really noticed before, not really ever having noticed freckles on a guy’s butt before. “Not all of us have crazy coaches who think 6am runs are fabulous.”

“You’re wasting daylight,” Nick says, unsympathetically, and yanks the pillow away. “If I have to be up, you have to be up.”

Thanasi squints up at him, bleary-eyed. “That’s not a rule.”

“It is now,” Nick says, waving it away, and sits down on the pillow, so that Thanasi won’t try to grab it back and put it over his head. “You’re not over Donna.”

“Hello, Thanasi, how are you doing this morning, Thanasi, sorry for waking you up, Thanasi.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Donna.”

“I’m not having this conversation without coffee,” Thanasi says, and Nick considers this and finds it reasonable, so they decamp for the kitchen. After Thanasi fishes a pair of discarded boxers from the floor.

“She’s with someone else now,” Thanasi says, over coffee.

Nick nearly inhales a swallow, which is obviously what Thanasi meant to happen, from the glint in his eye. Nick kicks him under the table in retaliation. “Really?”

Thanasi nods. “I told you she liked a guy. Well. That worked out.”

Plan A – tell Thanasi of deductions and help him get up the backbone to try again with her – is dead on arrival. Plan B needs more coffee to form. Nick drinks and considers.

“I’m not, like, in love with her,” Thanasi says, watching him. “She’s a nice girl, and we’re friends, but whatever you’ve cooked up in that weird brain of yours, Kyrgios, I’m fine.”

Uh-huh. Six celibate months is not _fine_. “Who’s her guy?”

Thanasi looks away for a second, which means it’s a secret he’s not supposed to tell, but they’re _mates_ and he looks back again. “They’re not public, because his divorce isn’t final, but … Wawrinka.”

“But he’s like, 30,” Nick says, making a face. “And he’s butt-ugly.”

Thanasi shrugs. “29, I think. And Donna says he’s like, rugged or shit.”

Nick sets down his coffee. “Look, he’s not even divorced yet. I bet we could break them up pretty easy. Introduce one of my groupie girls to him, make sure Donna knows about it, and then the coast is clear.”

He doesn’t _really_ have time to help out his mate’s love life, not with his own sudden stardom and all, but c’mon, what are mates for. Besides, the bloke looks pitiful, all sad and melancholy. (Another big word.) Nick’s got this.

Thanasi, meanwhile, is staring at him like he’s forgotten the score and gone to sit down when it wasn’t a changeover. “I’m not breaking Donna and Stan up. They’re happy. I’m happy! Dude, really, keep your hand out of my pants. I’m fine.”

Nick makes a face into his coffee. Sure. Suuuuuure.

~

_present day_

Wawrinka has been pulled away by his team and ushered off somewhere else. Nick’s been glared at by Magnus Norman, which shouldn’t really be more scary than being shoved against a locker by someone as big and strong as Wawrinka, but managed to be 100 times as scary nonetheless. 

He’s still angry. Not the frustrated rage that had made him open his mouth and spit out something he knew would make Wawrinka hurt, but a simmering anger that makes his stomach churn. 

“I did it for you, okay,” he says, the third time he gets Thanasi’s voicemail, the first time he’s actually left a message. “It’s not right, him dating a 19-year-old old, he’s 30, and you’re. You know. You’re fucking age-appropriate!” Which sounds stupid, but now it’s out and on Thanasi’s phone, just as his earlier comments are on a Vine that’s gone viral, apparently. 

Nick rests his head on a locker. “I mean. I know how you feel about her. I just think it’s crap, that he gets her instead because he’s won fucking Slams and has fucking millions of dollars, and you’re left trying to be the best friend and eating your heart out. It’s bullshit.”

His phone buzzes with a new message. It’s not Thanasi. It’s Christos, telling him to get his ass out to the car, in rather colorful language. He sighs, and picks up his racquet bag.

~

_six months earlier_

“You wanna come over and play FIFA tonight?” Nick asks, already trying to remember which pizza place is the best in this city.

Thanasi, sitting on the bed, screws up his face apologetically. “Sorry, Donna and I are going out.” Then, longsufferingly, “Not _out_ out. Don’t give me that look. Just, we’re gonna see a play. I’d invite you, but I don’t think you’d like it.”

Nick bites back a sour _Why doesn’t Stan take her_. Maybe it’s a good thing that Donna and Thanasi are spending time together. When Stan dumps her – and he will, because Nick’s a player and he knows a player when he sees one – Thanasi will be right there to pick up the pieces. Not very dignified, maybe, but the dude’s head over heels. Needs must.

It just sucks, he thinks, after Thanasi’s left. It’s not like he gets to spend a lot of time with Thanasi as it is, now that the year between their ages means that Nick broke through a year earlier and is in all the main draws, while Thanasi’s constantly playing quallies. Jack Sock is pretty great, and they’ve become close friends really fast, but he’s not Thanasi. 

He thinks about inviting Jack over, but he’s comfortable on his bed, and before he knows it, he’s dozing off…

He wakes up, quite startled, from a dream in which he apparently became Donna Vekic. Or not, _became_ her, because he didn’t have tits and he still had his dick – tits would have been weird and kinda interesting – but he was in bed. On top of Thanasi. (He takes a moment to devoutly thank his brain that it didn’t put him in bed on top of Wawrinka, because he doesn’t think he could have easily recovered from that one. Not at all.) 

Except on top of Thanasi isn’t much better, is it? Or, well, it’s weird in a different way.

When he closes his eyes, Nick can feel Thanasi’s solid (if bony) frame underneath him, hear the ragged sound of his breathing, almost _taste_ the saltiness of his skin…

He jolts upright.

So. Something is up with Nick’s brain, and it’s super strange. All this thinking about Thanasi’s love life, and scheming to get Thanasi and Donna back together, has _fucked up his brain_. (Except. It, you know, wasn’t…)

He decides he needs coffee.

~

_present day_

Predictably, the tennis world is a bunch of pearl-clutchers and shit hits the fan.

Nick is booed on court for his next match, booed at the coin toss, booed during his initial introduction, has his errors and DFs cheered, and is booed off court after being defeated. At the net, Isner’s wide-eyed, like, “dude”, and Nick shrugs. 

Thing is, he probably deserves the boos.

He’s not in a good place right now. Thanasi’s gone silent.

~

_two months earlier_

Nick spends the afternoon that Wawrinka wins his second Slam kicking things and using the most creative of his curses. Even Christos cocks an appreciative eyebrow.

His mother must have eventually called Thanasi, because Thanasi skypes him not long after he kicked over his racquet bag and made a huge clatter. 

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Thanasi asks, without preamble. His eyes are laughing, though, and damn, Nick’s missed him.

Ever since the – what he’s calling the weird nap, it just won’t go away. He’s tried not thinking about Donna at all, but he still seems doomed to be her in his dreams. It’s really, like, giving him a complex. He’s still always kept his own parts, which is kinda reassuring and kinda a little disappointing – come on, dream-him totally wants to see if tits bounce - but dreaming about being snugged up in bed with Thanasi, or sitting naked on top of Thanasi, or, in a particularly memorable one, getting his jaw kissed by Thanasi – it’s just really fucking disconcerting. Nobody ever told him brains could be this weird. He’s beginning to feel some sort of strange fellow-feeling with some of the weirdos on tour. They probably just have weird brain issues like him.

Thanasi is looking at him with raised eyebrows, and Nick snaps out of that particularly vivid memory of Thanasi’s mouth on his jaw. Fuck. “Uh, just not happy about Wawrinka winning.”

A familiar look of exasperation appears on Thanasi’s face. “You’ve got like, a mania about him. Get over it. Donna’s happy. Why can’t you just drop it?”

 _Because you want Donna, and you should get what you want._ Where had that come from? He groped for something to say that made sense. “It’s just not right, a 30-year-old and a 19-year-old.”

Thanasi sighed. “Stop being a dick and tell me about what else you’ve been up to.”

_Well, I fucked a pretty girl last week and it was really awkward because my fucking brain kept flashing back to images from my dreams, and she was too soft and cute to be your gangly bony self. So my sex life is pretty much cratered right now unless I can get you back with Donna and lose these dreams._

They talk about basketball until Nick almost forgets about Wawrinka.

~

_present day_

He’s lying in a Cincinnati bed feeling sorry for himself at 2am when his phone buzzes and it’s finally Thanasi.

Thanasi sounds tired. “Get over here,” he says.

Nick asks for the hotel and the room number, and makes it out the door in under five minutes.

~

_two months earlier_

Nick loses to Wawrinka in Queens, and it sucks. He was all fired up for it beforehand, and yeah, he may have run his mouth a bit, because that’s who he is, yeah? It’s not a bad thing. It’s good for the sport, really, to have characters and young superstars of tomorrow. But then he started feeling not great, and in the end he went out weakly. And _then_ Wawrinka had the gall to kinda roll his eyes in press when they mentioned Nick feeling ill, and be all like “Nick talks a big game, but you have to take his talk with a grain of salt”. Who the fuck does he think he is?

It doesn’t help that he sees Donna in Stan’s box, and she is absolutely radiant, with that soft smile in her eyes that girls get when they’re fucking head over heels in lust or love, whatever.

“She really likes him,” he says, gloomily, to Thanasi, at one of their practices for Wimbledon. Thanasi’s got a WC, which is great, and of course Nick is a defending quarterfinalist, which is awesome.

Thanasi looks at him and raises an eyebrow. “Are you on about Donna again? Seriously, man, do you have a thing for her or something?”

Nick straightens abruptly. “No!” He’s never even wanked to her, which is saying something. But he’s pretty sure that wanking to her would get his brain all confused and start supplying mental images of Thanasi as well, and that’s a situation he hasn’t figured out how to solve yet.

Thanasi’s laughing, except he’s being sneaky and only using his eyes. Nick can still totally tell. “You do, don’t you.”

“I really don’t,” Nick says. “I’m actually taking a break from girls right now. Got to keep my head in the game and defend my points.”

“Yeah, yeah, you have points to defend, rub it in,” Thanasi says, with no heat in it, and knocks Nick’s ankle with his own.

~

_present day_

Nick makes it all the way to Thanasi’s door before realizing he has no idea what he’s going to say. _I’m an idiot_ is probably a given. So is _forgive me_. But it’s all the connecting bits that have fled his mind entirely.

Thanasi opens the door. He looks like shit.

Nick’s stomach drops.

~

_a week earlier_

Nick’s drawn Wawrinka in the second round, if he beats Verdasco (which he’ll totally do). It figures. 

“He’s rusty, though,” he tells Thanasi over skype. “I’m totally going to add his scalp to my collection this week.”

Thanasi points a finger at him. “You can’t say that shit, dude. Stop watching Westerns.”

“I say whatever I want,” Nick says, comfortably, which is true. “We’re going to hang in Cincy, right? Tell me you’ll get through quallies this time, because it’s boring without you.”

“You mean you don’t want to hang with Sock?” Thanasi asks, innocently.

Sock’s fun. They get each other. But he’s not Thanasi. And Nick’s not just saying that because of … the dreams.

“Nah,” Nick says. “You’re more fun.”

~

_present day_

“Hit me,” Nick says, because Thanasi’s not saying anything, he’s just standing there in the middle of the hotel room, _looking_ at him, and Nick’s never been good with silence. “I outed your sex life to the world, and I probably screwed your chances with Donna forever, just because I was pissed at Wawrinka and wanted to hurt him, and that was a really shitty thing to do, and I’m sorry. Hit me. Give me your best shot.”

Thanasi doesn’t look great. His hair is a real mess, and his eyes aren’t laughing like they usually do. But then that makes sense, because Nick just went and blindsided him on national – international – worldwide television, and he never knew it was coming.

“Hit me,” Nick says helplessly, and spreads his arms wide.

~

_the night it happened_

The first set sucked balls. The linescalls were bad, and in particular there was this linesman that was either drunk or sleeping, and quite possibly both. Bernardes was being his typical ineffectual self – really, the linesman should have been replaced right away, but instead Nick keeps hitting these brilliant line-skimming shots that get _penalized_ because the linesman’s like “out” and Nick has to challenge to prove that NO that was NOT out you FUCKING blind idiot.

“This is fucking bullshit,” he complains to Bernardes on the set changeover – because of _course_ he lost the first set on a very close tiebreak, because the world hates him or something and wants to torture him – and then Bernardes gives him a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct for a little justified profanity, and isn’t that just the shit.

Meanwhile Wawrinka is sitting in his chair being all calm and self-satisfied and full of himself, with his ridiculous little shorts keychain and his embossed Slam trophies and his stupid Stan the Man nickname embossed on his racquet bag. He’s 30 fucking years old. He’s taken Thanasi’s girl, and he’s a fucker who basically implies that Nick makes up stuff, and he’s just so fucking infuriating he makes Nick’s blood want to boil.

Perhaps it’s not entirely surprising, then, when Wawrinka tells Nick to stop moaning and serve, and Nick calmly fires down an ace, turns to collect more balls, and says, precisely and with venom, “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell ya about it, mate.”

Not entirely surprising, but yet somehow also earth-shattering.

~

_present day_

“I’m not going to hit you,” Thanasi says, at last, the first words he’s spoken, his voice sounding a bit rusty.

Nick cocks his chin out. “It’d make you feel better.” He pauses, admits, “It’d make me feel better.”

“I don’t give a fuck whether you feel better right now,” Thanasi says, and even though Nick should have been prepared for the anger, he wasn’t really. “You had no right.”

“I know,” Nick says. “I just.” He swallows. “I wanted to punish him for taking Donna, I wanted to hurt him for sledging me, I wanted… I don’t know. It just … came out.”

“He didn’t fucking take Donna!” Thanasi roars, at a scarily high volume for him. Nick hopes the hotel manager doesn’t come knocking. That’s the last thing they need right now, them to be caught yelling at each other at 2am in the morning. “She was never mine to begin with!”

Nick spreads his hands helplessly. “I know, she’s no man’s, she’s her own person, I’m sorry…”

Thanasi leans back against the table, perching on its edge, and rubs at his eyes. He’s apparently done shouting now, as abruptly as he started. “That’s not what I meant, Nick. I mean, it’s true, but…”

“What then?” Nick asks. He’s tired, and he’s confused, and he’s just. At the end of his rope.

Thanasi looks like he is too. “Donna’s my friend,” he says, quietly. “We tried to sleep together, because Stan wasn’t interested in her yet, and I thought I might as well try it with girls, and we laughed a lot and had some fun. But I never actually ‘banged’ her, as you so eloquently told the world.” 

His voice has turned sharp, and Nick winces. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m gay, Nick,” Thanasi says, simply. “Maybe I should’ve told you already, but I haven’t really told anyone, and you’re so into girls, I thought it might make things weird.”

_And now I’m the one who’s made them weird, with an assist from on-court microphones._

“I don’t – didn’t – want things to be weird with you,” Thanasi says, still leaning on his table, his eyes averted. “It’s my fault you said those things. If I’d told you about being gay, you wouldn’t have got this fixation on how evil Wawrinka was for taking away my girl, and you never would’ve… they’re talking about suspending you, you know? Suspension.”

Nick finds that his legs can still move. “I know,” he says, taking the short steps to the table. “But it’s not your fault.”

“It is,” Thanasi insists obstinately, looking Nick in the eyes for the first time.

“It’s my fault, only mine,” Nick says.

“It’s mine too,” Thanasi says –

and suddenly it seems like the most natural thing in the world to shut Thanasi up and win the argument by leaning down and kissing him, just as Nick has so many times in those tormenting dreams.

Thanasi’s mouth tastes pretty foul (like he hasn’t bothered to brush his teeth for a while because his fucking friend outed his sexual history on fucking worldwide television and he’s been kinda hiding in a hotel room ever since), but Nick doesn’t give a single fuck.

Maybe he should be freaking out right now? But he’s had six months of dreams, and somewhere in the back of his mind that must have clicked over into a slot where his brain went “oh, guess that’s okay, guess we like girls AND guys, or at least girls and Thanasi, fine, where’s the pizza now”. Or something. He doesn’t exactly have brain cells to puzzle it out right now.

“Are you just kissing me to apologize to me?” Thanasi says, suspiciously, when they break apart for air.

Nick looks at him, and suddenly that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. He sits on the table and howls with laughter, while Thanasi stands there and judges him. Finally, he manages, “Is that a normal kind of apology?”

There’s a reluctant smile pulling at the side of Thanasi’s mouth.

“Because let me tell you,” Nick continues, feeling reckless, “that I am _not_ apologizing to Wawrinka if _that_ is going to be the apology.”

Thanasi rolls his eyes, sighs, and steps into his arms again. “You’re a menace,” he says, against Nick’s jaw. “You owe Donna the biggest, most abject apology of all time, because that was a scumbag move.”

“I know,” Nick says. “And I’m sorry. Really.”

“Really?” Thanasi says, pulling back so he can look Nick in the eye.

“Well,” Nick says, daringly grabbing a bit of Thanasi’s ass, “I’m not sorry that it led to this. But I’m sorry that I landed Donna in it. I should have just trash-talked him, not brought other people into it.”

“You’re not sorry about him at all, are you,” Thanasi says. It’s not really a question.

Nick grins. It’s a little shaky, but it’s a start. “No. But I’ll say I am, because I have to.”

Thanasi sighs. “I suppose I’ll have to take it.”

“Thank you,” Nick says, and means it – and then kisses him again, and means that too.

~

_afterwards_

He gets suspended. It’s probably the right call. (He spends it having lots of sex.)

Donna turns out to be a pretty decent person, and she forgives him, in exchange for him owing her for eternity.

(Wawrinka never does forgive him, not really, but Nick doesn’t like him, so yeah. It works.)

Thanasi is Thanasi. Which is just the way Nick likes him.


End file.
